You can’t save ’em all…

I’m going to brag on The Deistette a little. It is no exaggeration to say that she is a hero, a lifesaver. A God-send… at least to a few.

Since she moved here in September of ’08, I have seen more strays and castaways step through the door of this house than in the 12 years I’ve lived here.

But for some reason… they find her. Dogs and cats that turn up lost or thrown out although once, there was a threesome of baby possums that we found in our garage. How they got there I still don’t know.

There have always been stray cats in the neighborhood. Hell, we’ve got about eight or ten stray cats on our street alone. So to have a kitten show up now and again is not surprising. But it’s the dogs she always manages to stumble over that amaze me. For those of you who have been following me since she and I met,you know The Deistette is rather tiny. Soaking wet she might weigh 100 pounds. So to see her walking down the street towards our house carrying what looked like a 40 pound puppy was pretty shocking. There have been at least a couple of times she’s called me at work and said, “guess what I’m lookin’ at.”

I know right away what she’s talking about.

Well, about eight weeks ago it happened again. I got a call and she said, “guess what I got.” I could hear the smile in her voice and I knew.

“Please don’t tell me you have yet another refugee in the house.”
“No. She’s not a refugee. She is a shih tzu who is lost, super hungry and who I am now calling Peaches.”
“No! No, Emmie. We can’t take in any more animals! Two cats and two dogs is enough! No. No, no, no, no, NO!”

“I’ll see you when you get home,” she sang out and hang up the phone.

Well like I said, that was eight weeks ago. When Emmie found her she was extremely skinny and really dehydrated but we (really she) nursed her back. We got attached to that little dog over those two months but kept the course knowing we needed to find a home for her.

We just can’t afford to properly take care of another animal. Hell, we can barely take of the ones we have. There was a point where we even conceded that we weren’t going to be able find a home for her and that maybe we should just take her to a shelter. There is one near us called Citizens for Animal Protection. They have an extremely high adoption rate but when we got there and started filling out the form we saw where it said they get about 1,000 animals a month. There is no guarantee the animal dropped off will get adopted and there is a chance it will get euthanized… even that day.

We didn’t think twice. I don’t even think we talked to each other. We just stood up, picked up Peaches, put the forms on the counter and left.

But perseverance paid off.

One evening when Emmie took The Little Man to soccer practice she found out one of the mom’s had a cousin who was looking for a little dog. A few pics got emailed, they came over to our house, we got a feel for them and it looked like it was going to be a pretty good match. Turns out it was and Peaches (now Molly) is being spoiled rotten.

Again I’m reminded of this story that I put down in a post earlier this year.

The Boy and the Starfish

A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked he could see a young boy in the distance, as he drew nearer he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water. Time and again he kept hurling things into the ocean.

As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time he was throwing them back into the water.

The man asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied,”I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die through lack of oxygen. “But”, the man said, “You can’t possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can’t possibly make a difference.” The boy smiled, bent down and picked up another starfish, and as he threw it back into the sea, he replied.

from The Age of Reason

I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life. I believe the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavouring to make our fellow-creatures happy. ~ Thomas Paine, 1794